Cape Cod Ballads, and Other Verse eBook

Oh, the wild November wind,
How it blew!
How the dead leaves rasped and rustled,
Soared and sank and buzzed and bustled
As they flew;
While above the empty square,
Seeming skeletons in air,
Battered branches, brown and bare,
Gauntly grinned;
And the frightened dust-clouds, flying.
Heard the calling and the crying
Of the wind,—­
The wild November wind.

Oh, the wild November wind,
How it screamed!
How it moaned and mocked and muttered
At the cottage window, shuttered,
Whence there streamed
Fitful flecks of firelight mild:
And within, a mother smiled,
Singing softly to her child
As there dinned
Round the gabled roof and rafter
Long and loud the shout and laughter
Of the wind,—­
The wild November wind.

Oh, the wild November wind,
How it rang
Through the rigging of a vessel
Rocking where the great waves wrestle!
And it sang,
Light and low, that mother’s song;
And the master, staunch and strong,
Heard the sweet strain drift along—­
Softened, thinned,—­
Heard the tightened cordage ringing
Till it seemed a loved voice singing
In the wind,—­
The wild November wind.

* * * *
*

THE LIFE-SAVER

(Dedicated to the Men in the United States Life-saving
Service.)

When the Lord breathes his wrath above the bosom of
the waters,
When the rollers are a-poundin’
on the shore,
When the mariner’s a-thinkin’ of his wife
and sons and daughters,
And the little home he’ll, maybe,
see no more;
When the bars are white and yeasty and the shoals
are all a-frothin’,
When the wild no’theaster’s
cuttin’ like a knife;
Through the seethin’ roar and screech he’s
patrollin’ on the beach,—­
The Gov’ment’s hired man fer
savin’ life.

He’s strugglin’ with the gusts that strike
and bruise him like a hammer,
He’s fightin’ sand that stings
like swarmin’ bees,
He’s list’nin’ through the whirlwind
and the thunder and the clamor—­
A-list’nin’ fer the signal
from the seas;
He’s breakin’ ribs and muscles launchin’
life-boats in the surges,
He’s drippin’ wet and chilled
in every bone,
He’s bringin’ men from death back ter
flesh and blood and breath,
And he never stops ter think about his
own;

He’s a-pullin’ at an oar that is freezin’
to his fingers,
He’s a-clingin’ in the riggin’
of a wreck,
He knows destruction’s nearer every minute that
he lingers,
But it do’n’t appear ter worry
him a speck:
He’s draggin’ draggled corpses from the
clutches of the combers—­
The kind of job a common chap would shirk—­
But he takes ’em from the wave and he fits ’em
fer the grave,
And he thinks it’s all included
in his work.